Abstract
APETALA2/Ethylene-Responsive transcription factors (AP2/ERF), with their multifunctional roles in plant development, hormone signaling and stress tolerance, are important candidates for engineering crop plants. Here, we report identification and analysis of gene structure, phylogenetic distribution, expression, chromosomal localization and cis-acting promoter analysis of AP2/ERF genes in the C4 crop plant sorghum. We identified 158 ERF genes in sorghum with 52 of them encoding dehydration-responsive binding elements (DREB) while 106 code for ERF subfamily proteins. Phylogenetic analysis organized sorghum ERF proteins into 11 distinct groups exhibiting clade-specific expansion. About 68% ERF genes have paralogs indicating gene duplications as major cause of expansion of ERF family in sorghum. Analysis of spatiotemporal expression patterns using publicly available data revealed their tissue/genotype-preferential accumulation. In addition, 40 ERF genes exhibited differential accumulation in response to heat and/or drought stress. About 25% of the segmental gene pairs and eleven tandem duplicated genes exhibited high correlation (> 0.7) in their expression patterns indicating genetic redundancy. Comparative phylogenomic analysis of sorghum ERFs with 74 genetically characterized ERF genes from other plant species provided significant clues to sorghum ERF functions. Overall data generated here provides an overview of evolutionary relationship among ERF gene family members in sorghum and with respect to previously characterized ERF genes from other plant species. This information will be instrumental in initiating functional genomic studies of ERF candidates in sorghum.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB) grant (ECR/2015/000495) and Ramalingaswami fellowship grant “BT/RLF/Re-entry/27/2012” from Department of Biotechnology, India to MKS. SM and VS acknowledge UGC, Govt. of India and ICMR, Govt. of India, respectively for Junior Research Fellowships. Thanks to Aleena Francis for helping with the HMM analysis.
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SM, VS, IV and SSP performed the analysis and prepared the figures. SM, RS and MKS participated in writing the manuscript. MKS conceived, conceptualized and supervised the complete study. K-H.J. participated in finalizing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Mathur, S., Priyadarshini, S.S., Singh, V. et al. Comprehensive phylogenomic analysis of ERF genes in sorghum provides clues to the evolution of gene functions and redundancy among gene family members. 3 Biotech 10, 139 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-020-2120-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-020-2120-y